“Peeled Back” Rich TYPOGRAPHY Effect Photoshop Tutorial

CREATE THIS 3D TEXT EFFECT THAT WILL BLOW YOUR MIND! | We will create this text effect using nothing but a few stock images of animals. Anybody should be able to follow this tutorial and have fun!

In this Photoshop tutorial, we will use a simple typeface mixed with color effects to build a paper style background and then create a 3D peeling letter effect and then talk about masking in animals for our “ZOO” as well as mixing foliage, shadows, and much more to create a very cool looking type effect that you’re sure to love. We will talk about Dodging and Burning, Shape Layers, Layer Masks, Creating Shadows, Building Depth, Compositing Elements of a Photo Manipulation, Color Effects, Faking 3D, Isolating Objects using Color Range, Working with Multiple Files at Once, and SO much more! Thanks for watching!

!!ATTENTION!! If you do create this effect, please upload it to Instagram and tag me in the image so I can see what you made! My Instagram is: @tutvid

Duplicate the type layer and hide the original type layer and right-click on new type layer and choose “Convert to Shape”

Grab the Direct Selection tool and select the inner path for the letter “O” and delete this path to make the “O” a solid circle of color. Do this to both “O”’s that we have.

Next, Cmd/Ctrl + click the layer thumbnail of the original type layer (the hidden one) to load it as a selection and select the “map-flat” layer and hit Cmd/Ctrl + J to cut that chunk out and pop it up onto a new layer.

Name this layer “opened-door”

Add a Levels adjustment layer and clip it to the “opened-door” layer

Set the Levels layer to: 0/0.8/255//0/245

Select the “opened-door” layer and grab the Rectangular Marquee tool and drag a selection around the letters one-at-a-time and go Edit>Free Transform and grab the middle transform handle on the right and squeeze the letter toward the left and then right-click within the transform handles and choose to “Warp” and tweak and toy with the letter shape a little to mix things up.

Create a new layer and fill with 50% gray and set to Soft Light and clip to the the Levels Adjustment. Name this layer “Dodge&Burn”

Use the Burn tool to create a burned/shadow edge along the left edge of the “opened-door” letters.

Duplicate the “opened-door” layer and drag it below the original “opened-door” layer.

Hit Cmd/Ctrl + U and drag the brightness to -100 to convert the text to solid black.

Use Rectangular Marquee tool to drag a selection around one letter at a time and use hotkey Cmd/Ctrl + Shift + J to cut to a new layer. Repeat until all letters are on their own layer.

Blur each of the letters using a 20px Gaussian Blur.

Select one of the layers and go Edit>Free Transform and move the reference point to the top left of the transform box and set the “V” (Vertical Skew) to 18

Group these blurred letters layers together and reduce the group’s opacity to 65%

Name the group “letter-shadows”

Duplicate the shape layer of our type and name this layer “inner-shadow”. Your layer stack should be something like this:

“opened-door” layer

“letter-shadows” layer group

“text-inner-shadow” layer

original shape layer from the type layer

Select that “text-inner-shadow” layer and reduce the Fill opacity to 0% and go Layer>Layer Style>Blending Options

Drag the animals in and convert to a Smart Object right away and then transform and scale and put in place.

Mask away bits of animals, letters, and shadows as needed to create the text effect illusion of the animals waving through the text.

I dragged any birds or frogs or foreground animals and dragged these layers above shadow and opened-letters layers.

Create a new layer above the “Dodge&Burn” layer and clip it to that stack of clipped layers above the “opened-door” layer and name this layer “shadows-2” and grab a soft-edged brush and paint shadows that would be in place for the animals and blur this shadow layer using a 20px Gaussian blur.

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Nathaniel Dodson: I am a young web designer and commercial photographer specializing in music, business, and athlete portraiture. I am a young and energetic individual who has been working in the design and creative field since I first started dabbling with Photoshop in year 2000.